ISBN: 83-04-04493-5
Description: softcover, 249 pages (24x17), maps
Condition: very good
Weight: 385g.

Krzysztof Nawotka, Boule and Demos in Miletus and Its Pontic Colonies from Classical Age Until Third Century A.D., Ossolineum 1999



This work covers the period between the early fifth century BC and the mid-third century AD, although the author occasionally goes beyond these dates. This chronological framework reflect the nature of evidence, none of which precedes the second quarter of the fifth century BC. Profound changes in the whole Roman Empire after Severus Alexander (in the period of the Crisis of the Empire) caused epigraphical sources to disappear almost completely. The Empire which emerged from this Crisis under Diocletian was a state of a different character than that of the Principate. The bulk of this work is based on documents created by the councils and assemblies of Miletus and its Pontic colonies or in connection with their legislative activity. Evidence is almost exclusively epigraphic. This, of course, brings to mind some of the most hotly debated issues of Greek epigraphy, such as the function of inscriptions in a largely illiterate society, or the relation   between legal acts once produced by the boule and demos and inscriptions in stone. Both are difficult to approach because of the paucity of evidence resulting largely from dissimilar interests and needs of people in antiquity and modern scholars. The first of these questions has not been resolved even in the case of Athens whose history, especially in classical age, is illuminated far better by very diverse sources than any other city or state in antiquity.